RetailerSpeak: A Mobile Loyalty Platform allows us to keep in touch with our customers on a personal level

Positioned as a lifestyle store for women, ‘Maya by Gitanjali’ has been constantly innovating itself to ensure customer delight. Vinay Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Maya speaks to ShopTalk about their loyalty program ‘Maya Club’, their in-store and social media campaigns and future marketing strategies.

What motivated Gitanjali group to start a loyalty program? What were the key factors behind this decision?

The purpose behind starting ‘Maya Club’ was to boost loyalty among our existing customers base and entice new customers as well. We had grown to a level where loyalty program was a natural progression in our efforts to keep the customers engaged and delighted. In past six months, ‘Maya Club’ has performed admirably to increase customer loyalty towards our brand as well as to respective stores.

Please tell us more about the ‘Maya Club’ and how it works. Why did you opt for a mobile based loyalty program?

Maya Club has a slab based loyalty program. The customers are enrolled under each slab based on their purchase – Silver, Gold and Platinum. Since each slab has better points earning options than previous, it also motivates the customers to upgrade to higher slabs faster.

We preferred a mobile-based loyalty program because of convenience it offers. It is easy for the customers to manage their loyalty accounts on mobile and therefore ensured more customer involvement. Since it was mobile, it also allows us to keep in touch with our customers on a more regular basis and on a personal level.

Maya became a part of Gitanjali Lifestyle in December 2009. Have you seen any difference in store performances since Maya Club was introduced in December 2010 as compared to the previous year?

Maya Club and its campaigns have generated additional revenues of 25% since inception on average for each store. Compared to December 2009 – June 2010, our revenues have increased by 20% since we started Maya Club across all stores.

Our repeat customer visits have also increased to 26% from 15% since the program was launched. There has also been an increase of repeat customer visits from earlier 15%. Moreover, we have noticed a sizable increase in the average basket size from 1.7 to 2.4 in this duration.

Maya is positioned as a lifestyle store for women. How do you use your customer data to design effective campaigns for your target audience?

Along with standard metrics, we also track metrics which helps us determine which customers come how often and what are they buying. We also track customer demography metrics and map them against the purchases, thus identifying purchase pattern and rising trends. With Capillary’s analytics support, we gather the best insights from the data collected and create effective marketing campaigns.

Please tell us about some of the successful campaigns run recently.

We recently ran a campaign on Facebook, where we gave exclusive offers to our fans. All the existing loyalty members were communicated about this opportunity and were encouraged to join our fan base on Facebook. As a result, the number of page likes increased by 32%. We also generated 7% additional sales through these exclusive Facebook campaigns.

We also ran a live chat on our page where fans could talk to us about our products, fashion trends and any other queries. In a month, we had interacted with over 2000 customers with these live chat sessions.

What is your strategy to improve Customer Loyalty further? What future additions to your loyalty program are in pipeline?

To create stronger customer loyalty, we plan to extend the loyalty program to all the existing and upcoming Maya stores. We are also planning to focus more on the ‘lapsed customer’ segment and draw them towards our stores with irresistible, interesting promotions. We would also start running referral programs for loyalty members, where both the referrer and the referred will be reward for a successful referral which is a win-win opportunity for everyone.

In coming months, we envision Maya to grow phenomenally with more stores and new markets. To ensure that we keep our customers engaged and delight them better than ever before, Maya Club will be extended to all the existing and upcoming stores to create a synergy between all the stores and give the customers a unique, unmatched shopping experience.

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